Welcome to your May 2025 Workforce Development Update from Leeds City Council’s Organisational and Workforce Development Service. This edition is the first to use a new format, many of the articles have a link to our new website where you will find more topical insights and information. In this edition you will find important news, updates, and information on some of the current topics, support, and training opportunities.
Featured in this edition:
- Upcoming adult social care training sessions and events
- The Leadership Academy
- Funding opportunities
- Leeds Registered Manager Network
- Recruitment and retention
- What's new this month:
- Skills for Care Update
- Leeds Adult Safeguarding Board
- ASC Recruitment, Training, Development website link
We are pleased to let you know that new dates for free mandatory training provided by the Leeds City Council Organisational & Workforce Development Team have now been added for May 2025 onwards. Please visit our website for more details about the May courses and how to book a place https://asctraining.leeds.gov.uk/training-courses
These courses are taking place over the next few weeks.
Making Research Count are hosting a series of webinars in May and June.
- Working with Older People Living with Dementia on Thursday 15 May 2025, 11:00am - 12.30pm
- Attachment Theories and Older People on Wednesday 4 June 2025, 11.00am - 12.30pm
- Working with People with Learning Disabilities and their Carers on Thursday 5 June 2025, 11.00am - 12.30pm
Please email Making Research Count to book a place on these events. MRC@beds.ac.uk
The Leadership Academy exists to support and develop leaders and managers across adult social care, improving their confidence and capability to ensure the teams they lead are better able to provide high quality care. It does this by providing a range of courses throughout the year. These courses are delivered by experts, professionals, and sector leads, providing training which underpins leadership and management best practice and qualifications, as well as supporting on-going individual continual professional development.
The 2025/26 programme has now been finalised, and all the courses can be seen on PAL.
The following Leadership Academy courses are starting in May and June:
- Lead to Succeed, Programme 1, starts 29/05/25 *
- Well-led, Programme 1, starts 06/06/25 *
- Understanding Performance Management 12/06/25
- Essential Line Management Skills 02/06/25
- Audit Reporting and Action Planning 20/06/25
Don’t forget, the programmes with a * are eligible for the Learning and Development Support Scheme (LDSS) funding, as such, you could claim back the full programme fees. See the article below, funding opportunities, for further details on the LDSS.
We have produced a prospectus which provides an overview of all the Leadership Academy courses for 2025/26.
Adult Social Care – Workforce Data Set
The Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) is an online data collection service that covers the adult social care workforce in England. It is important that providers in Leeds are signed-up to and using ASC-WDS. We want to support you with this, so we will be providing an on-line workshop on the 22 May, 10:00 – 11:00. The aims of this session are, to learn about all the benefits of having an ASC-WDS account, how to set-up an account, links to support and how we are utilising the data in Leeds.
If you are not familiar with the ASC-WDS, and would like to know more about it, or you would simply like a refresh, you can join the session by clicking the link below ten minutes before it starts on the 22nd May. To join the workshop click here
Adult Social Care Learning & Development Support Scheme
We hope that you have started to take advantage of the new Learning & Development Support Scheme (LDSS). The purpose of the LDSS is to provide financial assistance to any eligible adult social care employer towards the costs of recognised training courses and qualifications.
We are delighted that the Department of Health and Social Care have confirmed that the LDSS is available for 2025/26. As the overall funding amount is finite, we recommend that employers make their claims as soon as employees complete their qualification or courses.
The following link will provide all the information that you need to utilise this funding Adult Social Care Learning and Development Support Scheme
Skills for Care will be hosting a webinar on the 11 May about the LDSS funding, with speakers from DHSC and the NHSBSA. If you are not familiar with the process for claiming, I am sure that it would be helpful.
The network is a place for managers to come together with other managers from across Leeds. It offers a safe space to connect with peers, an opportunity to be open with each other and to support each other’s challenges, as well as building and sustaining a positive collective identity.
At each network, managers share knowledge and can access peer support. They hear from a range of guest speakers including local CQC inspection teams, commissioners, Integrated Care System (ICS) representatives and local wellbeing hubs etc. Certificates of attendance are also offered and are a great way for managers to evidence their CPD to the CQC.
The last network meeting was held on the 5th March 2025.
These are the dates of the future network meetings:
- 23/07/25 14:00 to 16:00
- 22/10/25 09:30 to 11:30
- 25/02/26 14:00 to 16:00
All the meetings will take place at the Community Centre, Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Building, 311 Stonegate Road, Moortown Leeds, LS17 6AZ.
If you have any topics that you would like to be included in the meetings, please let us know. If you would like to be added to the network’s membership, please email either:
Ailsa.benn@skillsforcare.org.uk or trevor.hewitt@leeds.gov.uk
Bursaries
Bursaries are now available via the Yorkshire and Humber International Recruitment project. The YHIR Project aims to support displaced international workers, who’s employer has had their sponsorship licence revoked, to help them find alternative sponsored employment in the care sector.
Care Providers: Home Office Approved Sponsor (HOAS) Bursary
This bursary is for Care Providers who do not currently hold a sponsorship licence, but who wish to apply to the Home Office to become an approved sponsor. YHIR have develop a comprehensive support package to help Providers understand their responsibilities and commitment of being a sponsor, prior to applying. We can also expedite the decision making to speed up the process once Providers have submitted their application. Upon approval of becoming a Home Office Approved Sponsor (HOAS), the YHIR will reimburse the cost of the application which will either be £536 (small employer < 50 staff) or £1476 (large > 50 staff). Further information is available here
To support existing HOAS sponsors who make an offer of employment to a displaced sponsored worker that is introduced to them by the YHIR programme there is a bursary available to help with costs. The YHIR Project will be making available a bursary of £1750.00 for each displaced international worker introduced by the project, subject to eligibility criteria. The YHIR team will provide support to Providers to confirm eligibility and the bursary will be released once the worker starts employment.
There is also a bursary available for the workers to support in the visa costs.
For further details or to apply please contact the West Yorkshire project lead on yhirwestyorkshire@bradford.gov.uk or the We Care Academy at wecareacademy@leeds.go.uk
Immigration Rules change overview
On 12th March, the government announced changes relating to international recruitment of care workers and senior care workers. Further information can be found by using this link.
From April 2025, care providers in England who wish to recruit a new worker from overseas, or those switching from another visa route, will have to first prove that they have attempted to recruit a worker from within the UK who is already in the route and needs new sponsorship.
Adult Social Care Workforce survey: April 2025 - oversees recruitment
The adult social care recruitment and retention workforce survey was a voluntary survey completed by the Care Quality Commission registered adult social care residential care and domiciliary care settings via Capacity Tracker. The survey ran for one month from 19 August to 19 September 2024. The survey aimed to gain insight into the scale of adult social care workforce challenges and specific areas of concern in the lead up to winter 2024, following a fall in the number of entry visa grants for care workers and senior care workers at the beginning of 2024. The survey findings can be read by clicking on this link.
Skills for Care update
Nurse leadership programme for internationally educated registered nurses
This programme has been designed specifically for internationally educated registered nurses to ensure they have the knowledge and skills to be a confident and effective leader whilst working in social care in England.
To be eligible for the programme, participants must have their NMC PIN and have been in the UK for less than two years.
Internationally educated registered nurses play a vital role in the adult social care workforce and it's important that they feel valued and supported. We'll provide them with the tools and techniques needed to better lead themselves and others.
Whether you’re an internationally educated nurse or would like to offer a colleague the chance to go on this leadership programme, you’ll be interested in finding out more.
To find more information about this programme you can visit the Skills for Care website.
Skills for Care is helping social care providers #RecruitRight this May
This May, Skills for Care is providing practical guidance, expert insights, tools and seminars to help social care providers recruit the right people.
Skills for Care's latest campaign aims to help employers build more diverse workforces, understand how to use values-based recruitment approaches and create welcoming environments that make people want to stay.
Please visit our #RecruitRight campaign landing page for more information.
Skills for Care publishes Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES) 2024 report
Skills for Care has published their latest findings from the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES).
The SC-WRES improvement programme is designed to support social care organisations to achieve anti-racist workplaces. It requires participating local authorities to report data on nine indicators which compare the experiences of people from minoritised ethnic backgrounds to white staff. The improvement programme also requires participants to develop action plans based on the findings and produce their own local authority report.
To find out more about this report Access the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC-WRES) 2024 report
Leeds Safeguarding Adults Board
Safeguarding news for people working with adults in Leeds - May 2025. To see all the activities and training opportunities please click onto this link.